Hi Kenneth, Jonathan and All:
PLATT (previous post)
Well, that memetics is considered a “discipline” is news to me. A
couple of books (Richard Dawkins, Susan Blackmore) does not a
discipline make, any more than two seminal books by Pirsig
makes him accepted in academe.
To claim that memetics holds the same scientific standing as
genetics is a real stretch. Among the scoffers of memetic theory
are such heavyweights as Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard professor
of zoology, and Robert Aunger, Cambridge anthropologist. Not that
they are necessarily the last word, but they do indicate that doubts
about memetics are not frivolous.
JONATHAN:
Following Kenneth's reference I checked out the following:
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information
Transmission
http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/about.html
It's a real academic, peer-reviewed journal up and running since
1997.
There are a lot of very marginal fields that make it into academia.
Not all reach the credibility of fields like genetics, but having a
proper journal is a good start. I am not familiar with SJG's specific
criticism of memetics, but I would imagine that he regards it as
too woolly. Of course, until biology became a molecular science in
the 1950's, it was held in similar disdain by physicists and
chemists. I'm not out to defend memetics, just to say that by all
appearances, it has the hallmarks of a nascent academic field.
PLATT:
I stand corrected and appreciate your steering me to the Journal of
Memetics web site. I learned a lot from reading the Report on the
Conference “Do Memes Account for Culture?” held at Kings
College, Cambridge in June 99. Impressive was the space
devoted to doubts about memetic theory, especially from social
scientists. Any group that respects thoughtful dissenters I hold in
high regard.
One sentence in the report caught my attention since it seemed to
point directly to the MOQ relevancy question. “The primary problem
of memetics, therefore, is whether there is a new entity on the
horizon in whose interests things can be said to happen (the
‘meme’s eye view’)...Unfortunately, this central claim has not yet
been proven.”
If a meme has self “interests,” i.e., purposes, goals, intentions,
ambitions, etc., then choices and values are implied. If decision-
making to follow one’s interests is a fundamental characteristic of
memes, the Lamarkian view of evolution is reintroduced and
selective reactions by memes to DQ are permitted. It will be
interesting to see if this idea develops any further.
You called memetics a “nascent academic field” and the report
called it an “incipient discipline.” Both mean “just beginning”
which, thanks to you guidance, I now happily concede.
KENNETH:
What relevance are memes to the MOQ ?
MOQ, Biological Patterns of Value, its Value lies in the ability to
grow and survive. MOQ 's delineation is failrly consistent with
common cultural understanding. So Pirsig did not go into the
inner mechanism of the social level, so writes M. Hettinger. Pirsig
did not define its working. It is there where memetics comes into
play.
If Pirsig did not define how the social levels work, it is up to us to
find how they does.
PLATT:
Looking for “mechanisms” to explain how the world works is, as
Pirsig points out, the subject-object view of science.
PIRSIG:
But after reading it Phaedrus wrote on one of his slips, "It seems
clear that no mechanistic pattern exists toward which life is
heading, but has the question been taken up of whether life is
heading away from mechanistic patterns?"
He guessed that the question had not been taken up at all. The
concepts necessary for talking it up were not at hand. In a
metaphysics in which static universal laws are considered
fundamental, the idea that life is evolving away from any law just
draws a baffled question mark. It doesn't make any sense. It
seems to say that all life is headed toward chaos, since chaos is
the only alternative to structural patterns that a law-bound
metaphysics can conceive.
But Dynamic Quality is not structured and yet it is not chaotic. It is
value that cannot be contained by static patterns. What the
substance-centered evolutionists were showing with their
absence of final "mechanisms" or "programs" was not an air-tight
case for the biological goallessness of life. What they were
unintentionally showing was a superb example of how values
create reality. (Lila, Chap. 11)
PLATT:
The idea that the way to look at evolution is as movement away
from mechanisms seems to me a much more challenging and
interesting idea than extending biological, genetic-like
mechanisms to explain the social level. As Pirsig points out, the
social level attempts to exploit, control and dominate the biological
level, converting “accumulated biological energy into forms
(human bodies) that serve itself.”
PIRSIG:
In this manner biological man is exploited and devoured by social
patterns that are essentially hostile to his biological values. (Lila,
Chap. 21)
PLATT:
So using memes with their close affinity to genes to explain the
social level as it’s described in the MOQ seems to me a futile
exercise unless memes can be shown to have their own
independent self-interests as suggested above and can respond
to DQ. Pirsig claims only an individual human being can respond
to DQ, so I doubt if memes can “make things happen.” But since
I’ve a lot more to learn, my mind remains open on the subject.
Those memes may get me yet. (-:
Finally, I still haven’t seen in the meme literature any explanation
of why memes act the way they do. I know the argument that
memes help social groups survive. But as Pirsig asks, “Why
survive?”
PIRSIG:
This is the sort of irrelevant-sounding question that seems minor
at first, and the mind looks for a quick answer to dismiss it. It
sounds like one of those hostile, ignorant questions some
fundamentalist preacher might think up. But why do the fittest
survive? Why does any life survive? It's illogical. It's self-
contradictory that life should survive. If life is strictly a result of the
physical and chemical forces of nature then why is life opposed to
these same forces in its struggle to survive? Either life is with
physical nature or it's against it. If it's with nature there's nothing to
survive. If it's against physical nature then there must be
something apart from the physical and chemical forces of nature
that is motivating it to be against physical nature. (Lila, Chap. 11)
PLATT:
Until you begin to tackle basic ‘why’ questions, the world’s best
theories, scientific or otherwise, come up short. Also in the meme
literature there’s a stunning lack of recognition of the role of
morality in the world other than a rather self-serving declaration
that morals are an example of memes. That’s fine, but I haven’t yet
run across anything that explains the difference between a good
meme and a bad one, nor the logical basis by which one could
decide.
Platt
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